Depthmap Generator and Relief Engraving Lab
The Depthmap/Relief Engraving Lab turns a flat source image into an editable relative-depth starting point. It combines an in-browser depth model, optional color-guided depth, manual correction tools, proportional sizing, relief visualization, 8-bit or 16-bit grayscale PNG export, a Krasnow-style parallax angle-map export, and client-side parallax grating SVG generation.
Open the laboratory
Use the public Depthmap/Relief Engraving Lab in a desktop or laptop browser.
What the result represents
The grayscale output represents inferred relative depth. By default, darker areas are farther away and lighter areas are closer. Invert Depth reverses that convention. The grayscale values do not represent millimeters, and equal changes in brightness do not guarantee equal changes in physical engraving depth.
The depth model estimates visible form from perspective, boundaries, texture, shading, familiar objects, and other image cues. It cannot see hidden surfaces or recover measured three-dimensional geometry from a single image.
The five-stage workflow
Choose and inspect a source image, initialize the depthmap, optionally use a saved Depth Palette to guide selected source colors, adjust and paint the map, then review both previews and export the appropriate PNG.
The process is iterative. Color guidance, clipping, the depth curve, inversion, dimensions, border padding, and brush corrections all rerender the grayscale depthmap and relief projection.
Processing stays in the browser
The selected image is decoded and processed locally instead of being uploaded as a Rasterizer job. The browser downloads the depth model when it is needed and runs it on the user's device. This keeps the source image local, but it requires substantial memory and either CPU or WebGPU processing resources.
What the Lab does not do
The Lab does not generate laser power, scanning speed, pulse frequency, pulse duration, line interval, focus distance, pass count, or material-removal settings. It does not create a LightBurn project, send a job to a laser, produce measured 3D geometry, guarantee a safe process, or predict the exact relief that a particular machine and material will produce.